


these knots in our string

by hcneybubs



Category: GOT7, JJ Project
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Not K-Pop Idols, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Drabble, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, One Shot, Red String of Fate, Sad Ending, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-15 10:35:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16061336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hcneybubs/pseuds/hcneybubs
Summary: Jinyoung has been able to see the red strings for as long as he can remember.Maybe he doesn't want to anymore.





	these knots in our string

**Author's Note:**

> #HappyJinyoungDay!!
> 
> More info on this short angsty mess in the end notes.

**_i_ **

Jinyoung has been able to see the red strings for as long as he can remember. They twist and twirl around one another, shimmering with little spots of silver that trick his mind to believe in their dancing illusion. They are fluid and flexible, looping in circles and ellipses and other shapes of ambiguity. They are everywhere and cloud his vision, but they exist in probability too, only visible when called for. Or maybe he’s just trained his eyes to look past them.

 

He remembers asking his mother about the strings. He is five and his mother stands in the kitchen, a deep green apron tied around her waist and a carving knife in her hand.

 

“What’s this?” Jinyoung points to his hand. His mother pauses her actions and looks away from the chopping board and down at her inquisitive son. She places the knife carefully on the bench before bending down to meet his eyes.

 

“You can see the red strings?” she asks gently.

 

Jinyoung simply nods in answer.

 

“You have inherited a very special gift, Jinyoung-ie. Not many people nowadays can see the threads.” His mother’s hands rest on his upper arms, strong and comforting. “They connect the two people who are the most important to each other. It is Fate’s way of making sure we find our match, our soulmates.”

 

“Are you and Daddy soulmates?”

 

“Very much so.”

 

Jinyoung grabs his mother’s hand, observing the thin red thread with curious eyes. He walks through the house, refusing to break his gaze until he bumps into the legs of his father. He barely registers the sound of acknowledgement that comes from the older man, Jinyoung's young mind is intently focused on trying to grab the string attached to his father’s hand. His eyebrows furrow in confusion as his little hand phases through the line of red, his fingers closing around thin air instead.

 

“The strings don’t like to be tampered with,” Jinyoung's mother answers his unasked question, having followed him from behind. “They never change, never break. Only death can do that.”

 

Jinyoung nods in understanding. He quite likes the idea of soulmates. He hopes his soulmate will like it too.

 

 

**_ii_ **

As for Jinyoung's own string, it coils around the smallest finger on his right hand twice, two rings of crimson separated by a tiny gap in which his pale skin peeks through. This in itself is peculiar, in all his memory of seeing the strings, he’s never seen someone else with two loops around their finger. But he dismisses it at a young age, not at all concerned with such trivial matters. The rest of the thread falls from his finger like everyone else, as a single rope dipping slightly before extending continuously out of his sight.

 

They say you shouldn’t follow the string. Your soulmate will reach you in time. Those too desperate for their lovers wander for years, a lifetime consumed trying to reach the end of a thread that stretches for infinity. Fate does not take kindly to being hurried, it seems.

 

Still, Jinyoung can’t help but be curious of its end.

 

 

**_iii_ **

He’s eleven when he first notices the knot in his string.

 

“Mama, there’s a knot,” he informs her, tugging on the hem of her shirt.

 

His mother looks down in confusion and, just maybe, fear. “How strange,” she says, more to herself than to him. “Knots only appear when there’s trouble.”

 

“Trouble?”

 

“The red strings aren’t always as simple as you think, it’s sticky business sometimes.” she sighs. “It’s for the best that you try to ignore it, I can’t imagine why your string would tangle at your age. It will be gone in a few days.”

 

Only it wasn’t.

 

Jinyoung knows why. He sees it every day. It’s hard to miss when the end of his string is tied to the hand of the boy he calls his best friend.

 

 _Your soulmate doesn’t have to be a girl_ his mother had told him once. If only she knew how right she was. But Jinyoung didn’t tell anyone about whom his string led to, didn’t tell anyone about the strings at all after he got made fun of for believing in “silly fairytales”.

 

He decides it will be easier to stay quiet.

 

 

**_iv_ **

He’s nineteen when he’s jolted from midnight slumber, unable to breathe. He can do nothing but lie in the dark as his chest heaves and his lungs work furiously to gulp down oxygen. Once he regains control over his airways, Jinyoung pushes himself up until he’s sitting against the headboard of his bed. He leans over, switching on the lamp beside him and squinting as the light floods his small campus dormitory. When he looks down, it’s an effort to stop the intake of breath that rattles down his throat.

 

The red string has looped itself around his torso once, pressing sharply into his bare chest. The knot that formed so long ago now rests on his skin, just over his rapidly beating heart. Jinyoung sits there, lost for what to do. He’s never seen this before, never in his life has he seen the red strings tie themselves around anything but a person’s little finger. He palms at his chest, but his hand passes through the thread, just like they’ve always done.

 

He can’t help but keep brushing his hands over it the next day. His shirt hides the string from his sight, and it remains as incorporeal as ever, but Jinyoung keeps rubbing sharply into the spot where the knot lies.

 

“You okay, Jinyoung-ie?”

 

Jaebum smiles worriedly across from him in the library, glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, an old paperback pressed out on the table in front of him. A strand of his soft black hair falls across his eyes and he lifts a hand to brush it away. Jinyoung watches it move, eyes catching onto the thin red string tied there that connects to the one currently wrapped around his torso. He could be imagining it, but Jinyoung feels the knot press tighter into the flesh above his heart.

 

“I’m fine, just tired.”

 

“You’re always tired. We should do something fun.”

 

“But we have class.”

 

“We can afford to miss one lecture.”

 

With a smirk, they’re out the door and down the stairs, Jaebum's hand in Jinyoung’s, the two ends of their string so indisputably close. He’s being pulled through train stations and markets and city festivals, observing the colours as they burst in his vision and listening to Jaebum's laughter as it rings in his ears. He watches the afternoon pass, watches as night falls and the city comes alive. When he returns home in the early hours of the morning, there are two more loops around his neck.

 

 

_**v** _

Jinyoung doesn’t want to hate her. He _can’t_ hate her. She makes Jaebum happy. Even if he wants more than anything to tell her not to bother, that her string doesn’t connect to his, that their fates don’t intertwine. But Jinyoung is weak, he sees the joy she brings to Jaebum and his resolve falters. He can’t bring himself to tell them.

 

Can’t bring himself to hurt them, even if it hurts him more.

 

 

_**vi** _

Red.

 

Her face.

 

Red.

 

A white dress.

 

Red.

 

Bells.

 

Red.

 

Jaebum.

 

His vision is blurry and there’s red everywhere. It flashes and swirls and he’s heaving sobs. Jinyoung thinks he may be crying blood.

 

His soulmate’s hand is intertwined with someone else’s, his lips locked to someone else’s, his happiness a reason for someone else’s. But it’s the oblivious gleam of joy in his eyes that sends Jinyoung turning away from the altar. Sends him stumbling out of the building, blinded by the furiously undulating strings of red. He falls against the old oak outside the church, body fighting against the threads that are wrapping around his entire body.

 

He exhales and the rush of black stills it all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!!
> 
> Fun story: this was actually the original for a narrative I wrote for my Lit creative last term lmaoooo.  
> I literally just wrote a jjp fanfic and then changed the names so I wouldn't get called out for it yeet.
> 
> I mean clearly it worked I got like a 94 on it just sayin' ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  
> (I _do not_ know how, this is trash af and I suck at angst but ty for reading it anyway)


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